While we await their “spontaneous” reappearance, retrospectively, who were the original OWS protesters, and why did they protest?

OWS demonstrators included the usual misfits, however, many had conventional backgrounds – young college graduates with expensive academic credentials, but no jobs.

Why didn't “Joey” have a job?

Joey grew up in New York City. His parents spent thousands on his education, re-mortgaging their co-op to fund Joey’s master's degree. He attended City College, majoring in Sociology with "a specialization in Urban Issues, Politics, Immigration, and Policy, with sub-specialties in Urban Studies and Policy, Crime and Deviance, and Social Work." Joey received a masters in "Sustainability in the Urban Environment."

In addition to her family’s expenditures, jobless “Judy” took out more than $40,000 in student loans. Judy also majored in Sociology, only at another city-based institution where her course work included "Adolescent Society," "Art & Social Movement" and "Sociology of Emotions."

Their degree work completed, Judy and Joey, scions of “one-percenter” households, returned to their childhood rooms, unhappy, unfulfilled, angry and ready to change things by any means.

Judy and Joey imagined they would realize the American Dream: Attend college, get degrees, find jobs, live the good life. They did their part. They got degrees. But the Dream eluded them.

Frustrated, Judy and Joey struck back at “the system.” They joined Occupy Wall Street along with other disaffected graduates holding degrees in Art History, Public Engagement, Theater Arts, Gender Studies and Literacy.

They demanded what they were “promised,” determined to make their courses in "Women and Politics," "The Politics of Protest" and that always-fun "Freedom of Expression Seminar" pay off.

What the angry OWS youngsters proved, although clearly not to themselves or each other, was that, although somehow personally meaningful, their undervalued BAs, MAs, and PhDs were BS.

They “demonstrated” that, even with sympathetic media coverage, a critical mass of inexperience couldn’t be transformed into a movement – or jobs.

Once, degrees informed employers that kids had potential. Then, America's economy produced enough entry-level jobs to absorb youngsters like Joey and Judy, allowing them to gain real-world experience, then progress.

Unfortunately, the economy and American higher education have changed.

So, who convinced these kids and their parents to spend small fortunes for BAs in Gender Studies? Did Goldman Sachs hoodwink young people into borrowing more money than their degree will ever be worth?

Did Citicorp strong-arm kids and families to borrow thousands to get advanced degrees in "Sustainability in the Urban Environment?"

Joey’s and Judy's anger would be better directed at the architects of the government's easy student loan policies and the institutional greed that hollowed out once-rigorous liberal arts programs and cheapened degrees to attract and plunge more students into debt at ever-higher costs.

But, because unmasking the unintended consequences of progressive educational policies didn't fit their college-acquired narratives, jobless OWS demonstrators directed their anger at capitalism, the economic system which created the lifestyles they were demanding.

Ironic, huh?

Adults watching footage of immature kids -- and the anti-capitalist agitators who inflamed them -- chanting "This is how democracy looks!" knew better. The general public found the OWS revival of 1968-style American street protests and occupations distasteful.

But, with understanding comes wisdom.

Eventually, expect electoral payback for the politicians who promoted the easy money policies which indebted students, including students who never completed degree work, and market consequences for the institutions that profited from enticing, taking their money and under-educating them.

Jerry Shenk is a PennLive/Patriot-News community columnist. His work appears biweeklu. Readers may email him at jshenk2010@gmail.com.